投袂而起 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. to shake one's sleeves and rise
• fig. to get excited and move to action

Character by character

• 投tóuto pitch, to throw; to bid, to invest
• 袂mèisleeves
• 而érand, and then, and yet; but
• 起qǐto begin, to initiate; to rise, to stand up

Idioms sharing a character

• 五体投地 wǔ tǐ tóu dì
• 情投意合 qíng tóu yì hé
• 投桃报李 tóu táo bào lǐ
• 投石问路 tóu shí wèn lù
• 投笔从戎 tóu bǐ cóng róng
• 投缳自缢 tóu huán zì yì
• 投鞭断流 tóu biān duàn liú
• 投鼠忌器 tóu shǔ jì qì
• 明珠暗投 míng zhū àn tóu
• 举手投足 jǔ shǒu tóu zú

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.